Ferd Lewis: It’s Rolo’s turn to try to break the hex at BYU

SALT LAKE CITY >> After absorbing not only his first loss to Hawaii at Aloha Stadium but back-to-back lopsided defeats there in 1989 and ’90, Brigham Young football coach LaVell Edwards made a bold pledge to calm jittery fans in 1991.

If UH beat BYU on the Cougars’ home turf, the supremely confident Edwards vowed to jump off 11,752-foot Mt. Timpanogos.

Alas, Edwards coached another decade before moving on into retirement and the College Football Hall of Fame never having had to take that plunge off the second highest peak in the Wasatch Range.

Meanwhile, beating BYU in its own backyard remains one of UH’s longest running to-do-list items and the Rainbow Warriors take their 10th crack — and likely one of their best shots at it in years — today at 4:15 p.m. before more than 50,000 blue-clad partisans and an ESPN2 audience.

Nick Rolovich becomes the seventh UH head coach to try his luck at what is now Edwards Stadium since 1951. In that span the Cougars have held off UH by an average of 19 points a game, which might tell you why the man the place was named for was so confident.

UH’s last attempt, in the inaugural season of Norm Chow’s tenure, resulted in a 47-0 loss in 2012.

Not that UH has been without occasional opportunities. It just hasn’t been able to convert. Brian Gordon dropped a likely touchdown pass and kicker Carlton Oswalt’s 22-yard field-goal attempt caromed off an upright in 1993, a 41-38 loss that remains the most painful of the bunch.

That the ’Bows are just 11-point underdogs on a consensus of Las Vegas betting lines, unlike the 27-point ’dogs they have been in two of their past three visits, says there is more reason for hope than usual this time.

So, too, does the current state of both teams. UH is 6-1 (3-0 Mountain West) and can secure bowl eligibility with a victory.

Much of that hope is built on an offense averaging 38.4 points a game, which makes it one of the most productive UH has ever brought to Provo.

Meanwhile, the Cougars have struggled at home in recent seasons. Over 2017 and half of this season they are 3-6 in Provo.

Overall they are 3-3 this season and, for the first time since 1992, come into a game against UH with a worse record than the Warriors.

Part of that is due to an under-performing offense that ranks just 117th (among 129 Football Bowl Subdivision teams) in scoring at 21.2 points a game. It has been most noticeable in poor starts, including falling behind 21-0 in the last two games and trailing 38-7 in the first quarter overall this season.

That is one reason the Cougars are expected to go with dual-threat freshman Zach Wilson at quarterback today in place of senior Tanner Mangum.

To be sure the struggles have been magnified by a challenging schedule ranked sixth toughest by the NCAA. The teams BYU has played so far have a collective .778 winning percentage (21-6). But while BYU triumphed against then-sixth-ranked Wisconsin last month, 24-21, it was clobbered by Utah State 45-20 last week.

If UH leaves the Beehive State without a win at BYU today, the current schedule says UH could be forced to wait until 2024 for another shot.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.